I pulled out the nuggets I had worked on previously and looked at the size of the wire basket that the items to be cleaned are placed into. It looks much like a miniature french fry deep fryer.

There are many smaller old hard rock mines out there—more than you might think. There are some small hard rock properties that are even open to be claimed if one does the right amount of research to find them.

Making matters worse, we could feel the truck moving very slowly down the mountain along with the trees and mud. It was an uncomfortable sinking feeling, as you might guess.